The Namibia Press Agency said the hunter, identified as 46-year-old Jose Monzalvez, was killed on Saturday afternoon in a private wildlife area 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of the small town of Kalkfeld.

The agency said Monzalvez, who worked for an oil company, was with another Argentine and three Namibians when he was killed. It says one of the elephants charged before the group was able to find a spot to aim and shoot.

I’m not against hunting, but my take comes with a pretty big caveat. If you are to hunt and kill an animal in its natural habitat, much like lions and bears and great white sharks prey on other animals for sustenance, you better be eating it. I’m a big circle of life guy. The world is full of meat eaters of many different species. A cheetah taking down an antelope in the plains of Africa or a badger shredding a field mouse in the Texas hill country is nature at its most unbridled and raw form.

Guess who else eats meat. This guy. People are hunters, too. Our brains are dope as hell, though, so instead of having to rely on instinct and our God-given appendages to kill animals out in the wild, we developed weapons and gadgets and we created ways to farm and harvest our food. Swiping your credit card for a chicken salad sandwich isn’t exactly hunting, but when you buy meat, you’re paying for the convenience of not having to do the hunting or farming yourself — you’re paying for someone else to do the hunting for you.

Side note: It’s also fair to kill an animal that poses a direct threat to you, others, or your personal property.

Trophy hunting, though, I can’t support.

My guess is this guy was hunting purely for sport. I don’t even know if eating elephant meat is a thing, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here. BUT, no matter what your reason for hunting is, isn’t it fair that the animal you’re trying to kill in its own habitat gets to hunt you back? He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t wake up that Saturday morning wanting to kill a hunter. You brought the fight to him. He just won it..

I don’t disagree with the premise of your claim but I do want to add the following:

Typically, when trophy hunting, you’re given one specific individual within the local population that you’re permitted to hunt. This particular individual is typically genetically useless to the herd do to old age, infertility or sterility, genotypical mutations that would reduce fitness of the species if passed on, etc. Now, in return for being able to hunt this genetically useless individual the Hunter is paying $250,000 to $500,000 that goes to conservation to fight poaching and habitat loss – things that ACTUALLY are harmful to the species.

Personally, I’m in the “use as much of the animal as possible” camp (fried turkey heart? Not bad actually) but my uncle’s guys I hunt with are all hardcore outdoors so I’ve been kinda brought up to waste as little as possible.